My Billy Cunningham, the great American.
Of course, Channel ninety I team under the leadership of Paula Christian, has done an excellent report on what did the mayor know and when did he know it? Have to had purevoll? What did the police department know and when did they know it? About the information about the murder of Patrick Herringer and inside his own home. And you may recall at the time everyone was saying, including the mayor, that we weren't notified, didn't know about it.
New information seems to Connord Dick the statement made by Mayor I have to have pureval in the aftermath of the murder of Patrick Herringer on June fourth, and I had on Sarah about two weeks later to say she's devastated would be an understatement to have someone murdered in cold blood in your own home. But Paula Christian, once again,
welcome to the Bill Cunningham Show. And can you tell the American people what the IT team has discovered about reviewing the records and what the city knew and when they knew it about the release in the activities of one Mordecai black.
Well. Thank you for having me it's always a pleasure. Unfortunately, I did uncover that Cincinnati police knew about Mordecai blacks outstanding parole violations two months before the murder happened. They
got the hits while investigating a domestic disturbance. Mordecai's girlfriend called the police on April sixth in the middle of the night, and she was reporting that Mordecai had broken into her place where they apparently lived together, after she threw him out and they had a fight and he broke in through a fire escape, climbed through a window, and when she got home, he was standing there naked in her home. So she called police. Police came out,
they interviewed her. Mordecai was not there when police got there. She told police what happened, and she listed Mordecai's address as her own address, which is a multi family home on Vine Street, and the police officers on the scene went out to their cruiser and they ran Mordecai Black's name through their mobile data computer and they got six hits for parole violation, which does seem to contradict a statement made by Mayor Atappuraval.
You have that in your story in which you relate that the mayor. I could recall it specifically that the mayor at the time said, we knew nothing, didn't know about it, and we got to do better. The Adult Parole Authority suddenly they got involved and they started talking about, okay, we put it in the system, and the mayor kind of pictured this thing is something where the he wasn't involved, we weren't notified. We got to do better. It's unacceptable.
I don't know what level of violence is acceptable, but it's certainly unacceptable. But when you talk about the six hits, you also say in your story that one of the CPD, sergeant Anthony Mitchell, confirmed to you that the officer has got six hits on black for par violations when they entered his name into a mobile computer base on April
sixth during a domestic disturbance. And so you would have to say that of the six hits, the city knew at least two months before the murder of Patrick that this guy was a terrible, terrible risk of committing some future crime. He'd spent most of his life in jail. I was told by someone in the state that he had numerous violations of proper behavior in prison, for the years he was locked up. He was a terrible, terrible inmate,
and they never pursued that. I had a state official tell me Paula Christian that when fights and robberies take place in prison, they generally don't pursue it at all because there's too much of it going on.
They simply let it, let it go.
They should have pursued criminal charges against him while he was locked up in prison, because you can't commit a bunch of crimes in prison and not be able accountable for it. But nonetheless, so when I have to have Piraval said the city was completely in the dark about this, was that, shall we say inaccurate?
Well, it was inaccurate that Cincinnati police did know about the parole violations two months in advance. What they knew about them, I don't know. My understanding from talking to the police spokesperson is when you're checking a person's name through the system and it comes up a parole violation, it doesn't list details of what that parole violation is. It could just be a missed parole meeting, so they don't know. And that's the explanation that that I received.
So the city in the early aftermath of the terrible murder. They did shift the blame or try to shift the blame to the Ohio Adult Parole Authority and Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, saying you never told us. I mean, I've got the mayor's statement here. He said when he cut his ankle monitor, city law enforcement should have been notified immediately and he should have been tracked down and apprehended. That this didn't happen is unacceptable. So they tried to
shift the blame to the state. The state pushed back and said, look, within twenty four hours of him missing his meeting with his parole officer and cutting off his ankle monitor, we did file arrest warrants and violations in the system that should have been spotted by Cincinnati police.
So after the incident with the so called girlfriend, I can't imagine being a girlfriend of Mortca Black, but that's a different issue. After the incident with the girlfriend, the police went out and they ran immediately through. They found it, okay that this is a guy that's wanted. We don't know why he's wanted, but he's wanted. And then you also indicate that the police did not track down Mordecai Black after issuing a warren for his arrest because the burglary.
So the burglary took place on about April to sixth, and a warren was an issued for his arrest until May fifteenth, which is what five six weeks later. Do you know why it took five or six weeks to issue a warren for his arrest.
Well, actually those are two different crimes, well multiple. Mordecai
was very active. Police did not charge him for that domestic disturbance or that break in because they with his girlfriend, because they said they got conflicting stories and after consulting with prosecutors, they did not charge him, so they This is a whole separate other burglary that Mordecai Black is accused of committing on Straight Street on May fifteenth, in which he again broke into a home and to a residents woke up and told them to leave, and he fled.
Police came out. They filed a warrant that day for burglary, but it was never served, so he was never arrested until after Patrick Herringer was killed.
So the May fifteenth, and you make the point A Paula Christian of Channel nine in your story that the police on May fifteenth, after the second burglary, and I was told he committed many other offenses that he wasn't arrested for, but they could couldn't prove it, so they let it go.
But on May fifteenth, they.
Knew it was a second burglary, they knew he was wanted by parole, and they knew where he lived or supposedly lived.
Is that correct?
Yes, that's what my reporting has determined. And all of this is based on police records. So all of this information came from the Cincinnati Police's own documents.
Why didn't they go out and get them after May fifteenth, before the June fourth murder of Patrick?
Well, what's the reason?
I don't know. I asked for an interview with Cincinnati Police, and I asked for an interview with somebody from the city, and I did not My request for an interview was not accepted. So if I had had the opportunity to speak to them, I would have certainly ask those questions. So what happens is the public is left to guess and wonder and speculate, And you know, I would prefer to ask those questions myself.
But the city doesn't respond. They don't say no to you, They simply don't respond at all.
Well, no, I was told the Cincinnati police declined, my it's my request for an interview, so they said now. But I think it's important to also point out is we you know, they knew where he lived on this Vine at this Vine Street home, and he continued to
return there. So if police wanted to find him, they really could have just staked out this property because you know, just an hour or less than an hour before this, this terrible murder happened, we have on video from a source a man who looks just like Mordecai Black leaving that apartment again with a whole bunch of things in
his hand, shoes, clothes, and running out the door. And around that same time, somebody from that address called nine to one one and said we had a burglary and somebody took jim shoes, keys, and other I so, and the video tracks him directly from that house to right in the same area of where the Herringers live. And you know also he was carrying a knife.
Well, one answer to that question might be when I talked to a state Rep. Stacy Abrams, who spent twenty years as a cop in Cincinnati, and I spoke to Ken Cober. It used to be that when cops showed up for a shift, as it wasn't a lot going on, they would assigned each police officer two or three warrants to go find this guy, and then they would spend
time locating him because not much was going on. When you're down two hundred and fifty street police officers in the city of Cincinnati, there are many times as one car for the Central Business District from the Ohio River up through OTR. Ken Kober told me, there are many occasions we have one car on duty from between midnight and seven am one and if that person is in a traffic situation, violation or whatever, no one's picking up war Owrance to go look for anybody anymore because they're
overwhelmed and they don't have time. And that's what ken Kober and State Rep. Stacy Abrams said that this is a classic example where after May fifteenth, there was an active warrant for the arrest of Mordecai Black. They knew where he lived, they knew his dangerous proclivities. They also had the information from April six burglary that they decided not to pursue, and they knew this guy was a
vicious criminal. And because of staffing problems, I was told that we don't take warrants anymore on a shift to go find somebody.
Does that make sense to you.
Well, you know, these police officers, they are following the directive of what their boss tells them to do. So, you know, if their boss is saying, you know, you've got to go patrol north over the Rhine and that's what you're gonna do, or you're going to go patrol Smail Park, or you're going to you know, I'm sure that their boss is not telling them go deliver these warrants or go look for these people, these fugitives, and
they're not doing it. They're they're just following the orders that their bosses are giving them, would be my interpretation. And you know, maybe maybe it does require more police officers. But these are questions for the public. I mean, the public has to decide what kind of city they want, what they want their police to do, what is important
to them. These these are questions for them. All I'm doing is giving them all the information so they can bring these questions to their elected leaders and their police chiefs and ask themselves.
And Paul, that's a great comment. The officers will do what they're told to do. I head on a guest about a year ago and out of front of Saint Francis Sarah Church on Central Park in which is open air drug dealing, open air prostitution, human excrement is deposited on the alleys and streets around that previously great Catholic church. The Catholic and priest in charge shut the door and locked and he couldn't deal with all what was going on.
And police officers in uniform and cars were drove drive by open air drug dealing and open air prostitution and do nothing about it. And there were three or four business owners that said, we can't, we can't live like this. There's no business being conducted, and they had to close
their businesses. And that event brought little or no action from the City of Cincinnati other than holding a news conference which happened yesterday in which the mayor and the city manager and the police chief dislocated their shoulders, patting themselves on the back about what a great job they're doing, how much crime is down, but we know it's not down. We know it's bad, and now every night there's more murders.
Had on about an hour ago Steve Gooden, in which there was a street takeover in Clifton that was on Channel nine in which large numbers of individuals dancing on city cars, open air drug use, selling beer and drugs out the back of cars, brandishing firearms the firetruck and Clifton could not get out of the fire station for a call the number of people and that has caused no stir at all. And all you can do is report the facts as you've said, and we get the
city we deserve. And if they spend their time complimenting themselves what a great job they've done. Without without referencing these kinds of events, we're going to end up like downtown Chicago, New York and Philadelphia. But Paula Christian, thank you, and you put it out there. And the city had six hits to pick up Mordecai Black and failed to
do so, resulting June fourth and the murder. Especially after May fifteenth, it was obvious this guy was a danger to the community and the city police simply did not respond. But Paula Christian, thanks, thank you, and good luck to you and all the folks in Channel nine.
Thank you very much, thanks for having me.
Paula Christian, thank you. Oh, let's continue with more. There you have it. The facts will set us free.
And when the mayor says we didn't know about it, six times, they knew about it and did nothing.
Bill Cunningham seven hundred wold